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"If My Feet Were Wings"

If my feet were wings, I could fly
against a sun and away from this hole
that swallows me with its bit of clay,
wet from the world on my cheek,
collecting at my skin to breed
in my pores. But I have no sun,
no pair of wings whipping
against the wind. I do have this hole
with its noise of nails. I would wash
the gunk from this body, but
the river has dried and now whispers
my name. I could stretch my flesh
in a cloud, in a spiral close my eyes
to dream with such swift silence,
full vesseled, pulsing in rhythm,
if my feet were wings, clean and young.

[First published piece - accepted 1983, published in Mockingbird, the literary magazine for East Tennessee State University.]